The Awfulness of Suzyn Waldman

I haven’t heard all the great baseball radio and TV announcers, but I’ve heard many of them in over 50 years of tuning in.

Feel the weakness of his suckness

This Blog was started (in part) when I heard the fantastic news that Joe Morgan was fired, and not returning to ESPN for the 2011 season. 


I was also hoping that Rick Sutcliffe would similarly feel the ax – which hasn’t happened, but ESPN has mercifully cut his national exposure, and to Sutcliffe’s credit, he isn’t as much of the droning sycophant as he used to be.

I know, and you don't

Morgan was an imperious and smarmy boob. He was always right about everything, and if you didn’t believe him he’d tell you that he’d played the game, so therefore his opinion trumped all others. Facts didn’t matter to Joe (he never read "Moneyball," but knew it was all wrong, and persisted in stating Billy Beane wrote the book), but what did matter was telling you 4 or 5 times why he was correct in his opinions or observations.

There was a hilarious Blog called "Fire Joe Morgan" that stopped posting back in 2008, though you can still check out most of those classic posts here - http://www.firejoemorgan.com/

I can recall listening to Red Barber and Mel Allen as a kid, and there has never been a time in my life when Vin Scully wasn’t doing Dodger games. Scully is far and away the best I have ever heard on the radio, doing a local (Dodger) game.

Something happens to guys when they get to the National stage. I think they are told to dumb-it-down, as the school of thought is the national broadcast is for the casual fan, and the local ones for the hardcore.

Tim McCarver was one of the best "color" guys I’d ever heard when he was doing Met broadcast on TV in the 1980’s, but has since become painful to listen to – too many of the same old puns, and out of date sub-references. It reminds me of the TV shows M*A*S*H and Seinfeld, which were both as good as any sitcoms ever aired during their first 3 or 4 years, then slowly but steadily slid into mediocrity until they became unwatchable.

I despised Harry Caray too. Back in the early days of cable, I had baseball games on five cable channels, and we got all the Cubs games on WGN. Harry was an obnoxious drunk, an excruciating homer, and a tireless self-promoter. He honestly believed people came to the park, or tuned into games on TV because of him. Having been a Met fan back in the early ‘80’s, I had occasion to tune into WGN, when the Mets (WOR) were not airing games. I hated the Cubs in 1984 because they were the Mets big rival, but it was Harry that made me hate the Cubs to this day.

It was bad, even before he was drunk.

Two of Harry’s most annoying bits were pronouncing names backward – "So, the Mets first baseman’s name backwards would be Htiek Zednanreh," and singing a song about (Cubs catcher) Jody Davis, basically to the tune of "Davy, Davy Crockett…" He also always sounded like he was drooling.

Cute or even funny once or five times, but by the time you’ve heard either 30 times, you’re done, right?

The only line I can recall never growing tired of hearing, was Kenny Mayne on ESPN, referring to some crappy looking swing by a MLB hitter striking out as "he was choppin’ broccoli." I just laughed when I typed that.

The best color guy I have heard over the last few years is Jerry Remy, who does Red Sox games on NESN. Remy is invariably funny, insightful, and self-deprecating. Please don’t go national, Rem-dog.

Mr. & Mrs. Awful

So, why is Suzyn Waldman so awful? For me, it started well before her famous and wild scat the day Roger Clemens was announced as returning to the Yankees, but for many baseball fans, it was merely a glimpse.  If you haven't heard it, trust me, it's worth listening too just to appreciate how bad it can get sometimes, following a sport I love. You can find it all here at:  http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/2007/05/suzyn_waldman_h.html

The only thing that saves her at all is her partner on the broadcasts, John Sterling, who would be annoying all the time, instead of just 75% of the time, when he has to cut Suzyn off. Sterling’s annoying habits include a song to Yankee center fielder Curtis Granderson, sung to the tune of the old Sammy Davis, Jr. hit "The Candy Man," with the lyric changing to "the Grandy Man." We also have had "An Aaaaaaaa bomb, from Aaaaaaaa Rod," and his style in calling a game when he elongates a word and gives us "thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..pitch."

Among the many problems I have with Suzyn is her casual manner and cozy nicknames in describing Yankee players. It’s like she washes their socks and poo poo undies, packs them a healthy sack lunch, and hears their confessions before they go off to the park. Problem is, she really doesn’t know anything about baseball.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a Yankee game in which (center fielder) Curtis Granderson lost a pop fly to shallow left-center in the sun, and (left fielder) Brett Gardner had to make the catch.

My God, you’d think Gardner had just won the pennant to hear Suzyn describe it:

Did you see it, John?

To Sterling: "Did you see that John, the way Brett catches the ball at an angle? Did you see it? I was watching him in practice the other day, and every ball he was catching at an angle – he practices that…did you see it?"

Seriously, this is what Suzyn ranted about, even after coming back out of a commercial break. "You see John, Brett catches everything at an angle…he practices that…"

He ran the bases backwards

I have no idea what she’s talking about, unless Gardner is running a zigzag or button-hook pattern to every fly ball, in which case he may be the second coming of Jimmy Piersall, with the Mets,  running out his 100th lifetime homer?

I wonder what Joe Morgan would have to say about this? I am thinking if the movie "Moneyball" is successful, we could have:

An awful movie.

Brett Gardner

starring in...

"Fear Strikes Out, at an Angle"

The incredible and hard to believe true story of a baseball player that was incapable of waiting for the fly ball or line drive to come directly to him each time, and the woman who dedicated her life to chewing the stains out of his underwear!

Joe will set everyone straight, over and over again.

Good night Irene.